Jan 3, 2013

From Gambia: Karantamba

TERANGA BEAT proudly presents BAI JANHA alias "Sweet Fingers" and his psychedelic steamroller KARANTAMBA. Composer, arranger, guitar player of GUELEWAR & IFANG BONDI, BAI JANHA is undisputedly the most important musician to have come from GAMBIA. Band leader of the groups BLACK STAR, WHALES BAND, FABULOUS EAGLES & SUPREME EAGLES, founder of the group ALLIGATORS who later became the GUELEWAR, BAI is the one who created the unique psychedelic sound in the region of SENE-GAMBIA, mixing traditional compositions with Soul, his musical innovations contributed to the domination of AFRO-MANDING music in West Africa for more than a decade. This record presents BAI JANHA with his last group, KARANTAMBA,
a school for young musicians, in a totally unreleased recording,
recorder in Thiès (Senegal) at "SANGOMAR" Club the 16th of August 1984.
The double gatefold LP's liner notes and CD's booklet include more
information and photographs outlining all the way of the living legend's
musical career and the wicked percussive rhythms and compositions of
this album. We hope you will enjoy!

Bai Janha is a landmark figure in west African music. Hailing from
the Gambia, the tiny spit of land contained within Senegal, Janha was
involved in numerous bands in Ghana and elsewhere, including Eagles
(later Super Eagles and Supreme Eagles), Guelewar, and seminal outfit
Ifang Bondi. Primarily a guitarist, Janha teamed up with such figures as
keyboardist Adama Faye and bass player Badou Diop. In 1982, shortly
after a violent political coup in the Gambia, Janha founded the group
Karantamba.

The 1970s and ‘80s were a heady time for west African music, with
bands influenced by the funk and soul sounds from the US and UK and some
musicians, like Janha, striving to re-incorporate local rhythms and
instrumentation into the mix. Karantamba is a prime exemplar of this
trend, with electric instruments and funky rhythms often laid over
complex patterns of traditional percussion, and lyrical content
particular to the concerns of west Africa.

Now Teranga Beat has released Ndigal, a live recording of
Karantamba dating from 1984. With a backing band of young musicians,
Janha plays a scorching set of nine tunes ranging from the the snappy
“Dimba Niyama” to twelve-minute-long album closer “Gamo Jigimar”, a
gloriously hypnotic squall of sound. With most of the tracks hovering at
the nine-minute mark, these tunes have plenty of time to establish a
groove, stretch out, and incorporate any number of instrumental
flourishes and solos.

Polyrhythmic percussion forms the backbone of the songs, with piles
of guitar and bass and keyboards layered on top. Tempos are fast—no
ballads here, this is high-octane dance music designed to get backsides
sitting and energy flowing. In keeping with the high-energy vibe, the
singing might politely be described as “unvarnished.” With lyrics in
Mandinga, the vocals will remain opaque to listeners unfamiliar with the
language. Passion and intensity shine through, but the skills are
rough-edged to say the least.

In fact, the sound overall is rough as hell, in ways both good and
bad. The vocals are passionate from the get-go, and there is no trace of
the smooth polished sounds of Western pop or soul. Guitars are trebly
in the extreme, percussion is polyrhymic and incessant, and keyboard
breaks can be alarmingly shrill. There is something to be said, however,
for a little polish. The horns on “Ne Dinding Fally” are embarassingly
weak, and become audibly faltering as the song stretches along its
ten-minute length. By the second half of the song, the horns are
flat-out missing the notes. It doesn’t sound visceral and real; it
sounds amateurish. Ditto the occasional moments when the twangy guitars
sound distinctly out of tune.

Those moments are relatively rare, though. For the most part, the
tunes benefit from their harsh arrangements and rough performances. The
energy is palpable, and does much to overcome the rawness of the
arrangements. Songs like “Titi” and “Satay Muso” escape from one’s
speakers in a blaze of percussion and guitar, with “Satay Muso” in
particular rolling along in a hypnotic groove that establishes itself in
mere seconds.

Aficianados of Afro-funk or Afro-rock may find this previously
unreleased recording to be of great interest. Be warned, though—this is
almost field-recording quality, with little of the lushness or clarity
common in today’s studio efforts. It has more in common, both sonically
and in terms of arrangements, with the “African funk” compilations from
Soundways Records or Analog Africa. Listeners who are forgiving of
limitations in sound technology will find this performance an unexpected
time capsule to savor.

The Western fetishization of “world music” has, in recent years,
become both more conspicuous and less noxious. The gross exoticism that
accompanied much of the early blog love for M.I.A.’s early material (and
helped lead to the backlash met by 2010’s MAYA) has been
supplanted by a pointed rejection of what constitutes “Western” pop
culture and an increased accessibility to music being created all over
the globe; this has been facilitated by the internet’s far-reaching
grasp. The inevitable downside to this easy satisfaction of voracious
cultural appetites is acute mercuriality — not to mention a pointlessly
obsessive focus on relevance. Which is where Ndigal, an album
recorded in 1984 by the Gambian group Karantamba that has not seen
release until now, comes in. It’s not specifically relevant to any
current musical trends, but its timelessness effectively transcends
issues of coolness and shoots straight for the aurally sublime. Filled
with an unabashed sincerity that enlivens the best chamber ensembles,
the long live takes that make up this record have an infectious,
palpable energy. Witness the giddy shuffle of “Titi,” which has
contemporary relatives in the optimistic house revivalism of The 2 Bears
and the tropical dance music being created by artists as far-ranging as
Unicorn Kid, Tanlines, and Elite Gymnastics. Here and throughout,
rhythm plays a pivotal role, providing the jumping-off point for the
songs’ disparate melodic licks and vocal stylings.

And oh, what rhythms they are; kaleidoscopically unfolding as if they
were being looped upon one another, the drums on this album work magic.
“Na Dinding Fatty” has a particularly hypnotic pattern that expands and
contracts periodically, but irregularly; the result is breathing room
in a track that never stops to breathe. Additionally, the trumpet hook
running throughout a good two-thirds of the 10-minute jam is filled with
cracks and inconsistencies, giving the song a distinctly humanistic
edge. Such unpredictability also creates an atmosphere of uncertainty, a
general feeling that is amplified by the asymmetrical lengths of Ndigal’s
vocal phrases. At times, two vocal lines repeat at different intervals,
coming together and breaking apart in the dense musical tapestry.
Thanks to the album’s warm and pristine production, we can hear every
element in the mix clearly, and tracks like “Goré Nga” sound at once
both carefully constructed and spontaneous. Present alongside the
driving positivity that makes Ndigal sound so alive is a jammy anxiety, the incessancy of its uniformly quick tempi creating the slightest layer of unease.

But despite occasional flashes of uncertainty, the dominant emotion
here is always joy. Understandable, given the story of the group’s
genesis; Karantamba was founded by Bai Janha in 1982 in order to train
young musicians — to “bring them up to a professional level,” as Janha
says. And so the mood is consistently that of youthful curiosity, which
— in Janha’s hands, at least — is always a friend to artistic symbiosis.
As the guitars of the penultimate “Linga Ham” pass waves of sound
between each other, the communication between players is almost audible;
ditto for the perfectly executed tempo change that occurs at the
one-minute mark. It’s a mesmerizing effect that calls to mind the best
chamber group working today, the Bang on a Can All-Stars. Karantamba may
not have that ensemble’s larger-than-life technical abilities, but they
play with admirable gusto. Admittedly, this unstoppable dynamism can be
a bit soporific when absorbed over the album’s 80-minute runtime. But
in slightly smaller doses, and at its jubilant best, Ndigal glistens with propulsive vigor. In essence, it feels absolutely, completely vital.

Thanx for passing by ...

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